Countries and nationalities
youu will probably have noticed that they all end in either lainen or läinen.
This is because lainen/läinen is a suffix by means of which Finnish derives nationality names from simpler, shorter words, usually names of countries. The form with a is used if the word to which the suffix is added contains an a, o, or u (thus tanska | lainen, puola | lainen) and the form with ä is used elsewhere (thus venä | läinen, sveitsi | läinen).
This sort of matching-up of vowels is called vowel harmony; you’ll learn more about it later on in this unit.
if i Notice the irregularities – unexpected -a-, -jä – in the words for ‘Finnish’, ‘Swedish’, and ‘Russia’.
Nationality Country
suoma|lainen Suomi
ruotsa|lainen Ruotsi
venä|läinen Venäjä
eesti|läinen Eesti
englanti|lainen Englanti
amerikka|lainen. Amerikka
kanada|lainen. Kanada
australia|lainen Australia
ranska|lainen. Ranska
walesi|lainen Wales